Seeking Pack Redemption (30 page)

Bailey
didn’t understand the sadness tugging at her. Roderick was dead.
Jaxon
was safe. Her baby girl was born. She should have
been smiling from ear to ear. But something felt incomplete. Wrong.
I need
Jaxon
.
Seeing
him again made that so clear. She’d not stopped thinking of him since their
meeting. Cried all the time despite what her other mates did to cheer her up.
She didn’t even smile when Wyatt wore a pink T-shirt that said,
It
’s a Girl!

She needed
Jaxon
, and yet, despite the monster’s death, she
couldn’t have him.
It’s not fair!

A sound at the door made her lift
her head. Her breath
caught. Standing with shadowed eyes and a wan smile was
Jaxon
.
She carefully cradled the baby with one arm before opening the other wide in
invitation.

It took
him only two long strides before he hugged her.

“Oh, my God.
Jaxon
. I can’t believe you came.” She couldn’t help
crying as she rained kisses on his face.

He kissed
her back, chuckling. “I missed you, too, sweet cheeks.
Although
if you keep crying, I am going to get in trouble.
My arrival was supposed
to stop the tears.”

She
paused. “Gavin and Parker did this?”

“Wyatt,
too.” Her shock must have shown. “I know
,
we’ll have
to check and see if hell froze over.”

“How long
can you stay?” she asked cupping his cheek.

“How long
do you want me?” he quipped.

“Forever.”

“I was
hoping you’d say that.”

“But how?
They made it pretty clear they never wanted you near me again no matter how
many things I threw at them.”

“Apparently,
you could have spared the chinaware. They just want you to be happy, and much
as it annoys them, but delights me, it seems I’m needed for that.”

“You most
definitely are,” she declared. “Now give me a proper kiss.”

“As my
sweet cheeks commands.” He embraced her, and that easily, her heart grew light.

She sidled
sideways to make room for him on the bed, and he climbed on. He cradled her
with one arm under her head and stared at their daughter.

“I know we’ve
yet to do the wild thing, but I still think she got my nose.”

She
laughed. “Funny. Because Wyatt and Gavin said the same thing.”

“What
about Parker?”

“He says
she got his feet.”

They both
winced and then laughed.

Gavin
entered followed by Wyatt and Parker. They ranged around her, a comforting
circle of four men that eased the tiny knot she’d held inside since
Jaxon’s
disappearance.

“Happy?”
Gavin asked.

“Ecstatic.
Thank you.”

“No, thank
you for loving us.”

“And for
letting us drink booby milk. And just so we’re clear, I want to take mine from
the source,”
Jaxon
said with a leer.

Wyatt
smacked him upside the head. “Idiot.”

Bailey
smiled. Now everything was just as it should be. Everyone she loved with her, a
family, forever.

*
* * *

The sun
completed its journey across the sky and sank into the horizon painting the
asphalt in a brilliant wave of colors before giving way to twilight. Wind
stirred the heavy ash pile on the ground, swirling it and yet, not managing to
disperse it.

The
parking lot remained mostly vacant, only a few vehicles remained to mark the
sparse occupants. And of those who stayed, none were watching.

From the
shadows trotted a red-coated wolf. It paused in front of a door where the
stench of bleach had wiped a bloodstain away. But he doubted he would ever be
able erase the memory of the wound. The shame.

Backing
away, he sidled over to the pile of dust. An urge to sniff had him lowering his
nose. He inhaled and immediately sneezed, particles of ash lifting and blinding
him momentarily. Shaking his head, he sought to clear his senses, but while the
dust drifted away, he could do nothing for his muddled mind that still roiled
with the images of what he’d done. Ears pricked, he heard the sound of a
vehicle approaching and he darted into the shadowy edge of the woods and
watched.

A dark
sedan rolled up, its lights dark, its engine but a muted purr. It stopped
alongside the now cold ash, and a door opened. Hands clad in black leather
gloves emerged with a small broom and dustpan. A few brisk strokes
was
all it took to sweep up the remains and deposit them in
a carved wooden box.

When all
the ash had been moved from the pavement to the receptacle, the hands withdrew,
the door closed, and the vehicle drove away. It disappeared into the shadows
from whence it arrived with only a russet wolf, a traitor to his kind, as
witness.

The howling
went on for hours, along with the frantic sounds of battle and mayhem. Bodies
slammed against the door, and for once she didn’t curse the thickness of the
barrier, not when it was the only thing keeping her safe.

Over the
next day, the chaos, or the noise of it anyway, subsided, until only a chilling
silence remained. A quiet that once she would have welcomed but now feared as
hunger made her belly rumble. What had happened to her jailers? The vampire who
brought her here?
Did they all leave?

One day
stretched into two, then three and she grew weak with only the water from the
rusted sink to sustain her.

I’m going to die here.

Just not
in the way she’d initially assumed. Before, she’d imagined Roderick or his
minions killing her, now . . . Now the joy she’d thought she’d feel at never
seeing them again paled as the horror of dying by starvation hit her.

No. I can’t die this way.
Not without a fight or a
chance, locked in a room with no way to escape. For the millionth time, she
clung to the bars that covered the tiny window. The glass was long gone, and
weeds provided a curtain across the opening.

She
screamed until she was hoarse. “Someone. Help me. Please!”

For hours
she called, delirious with hunger, her body weakening. A presence pulsed in her
head,
a wild thing that howled as her mind shattered
and she forgot who she was. But she still retained enough to know freedom
lurked just past the portal. She could smell it. Craved it. Pined for it. A
death grip on the bars, she slept standing up, her forehead on the wall, not
caring that the rough cinderblocks scraped her skin.

The tingle
in her fingers woke her, and she peered up to see them bathed in a sprinkle of
moonlight. The odd sensation prickled then burned, and before her horrified
gaze, hair sprouted on the back on her hands.

An
agonized scream made its way out even with her abused vocal cords. Pain.
Oh, my God, the pain.
She dropped to her
knees, then hit the floor on her side, body thrashing. Awareness retreated as
she hid in her mind in the little room she’d built for herself for when
Roderick visited. She hid in her safe spot and left her dying body alone.

When the
door to the cell opened, she never even noticed, but the wolf in her prison
did, and it lunged for freedom.

The
End